Sen. Bam Aquino reiterated his call to suspend the excise tax on petroleum products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law following the recent big-time fuel price hike due to increase in oil prices in the world market.

Sen. Bam has filed Bawas Presyo sa Petrolyo Bill in May 2018 to suspend and roll back the excise tax on fuel once the country’s inflation rate exceeds the government’s target for three straight months.

On Tuesday, oil companies have announced increase of a least P1.40 per liter for gasoline, P2.30 per liter for diesel and P2.00 per liter for kerosene due to increase in world crude prices.

The second part of the excise tax hike under the TRAIN Law is not yet included in the increase.

Earlier, Sen. Bam slammed the government decision to implement the second part of excise tax under the TRAIN Law, emphasizing that the country’s inflation rate remains far from the government’s inflation rate target of 2-4 percent.